When Ozzy Osbourne nearly died in a cocaine duel with David Lee Roth
Ozzy Osbourne is happy enough to self-profess that he’s a medical oddity, he has little choice in the matter. His life is the textbook definition of what Hunter S. Thompson was talking about when he wrote: “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”
Ozzy Osbourne’s ride has been as wild as any. It would seem that each scrape, scrap and brush with the dark side has left him with thicker skin. He might be the prince of darkness, but if anyone should be believing in guardian angels it’s him, or perhaps his former Black Sabbath bandmate Bill Ward who was almost murdered by in-band pranks countless times—including the time when Ozzy almost poisoned his drummer’s spam javelin with highly toxic aerosol and exclaimed, “I poisoned Bill through his dick,” as he lay prostrate by the urinals.
These manic moments dominated an era of rock when peace and love died in a postlapsarian hellfire. The times had a-changed for the darker at the death of the 1960s. In November 1978, Black Sabbath and Van Halen were two of the biggest rock bands on the planet. Thus, naturally, given the era, they were also two of the biggest consumers of illicit substances in human history. When that notion becomes a battle, danger is afoot faster than the race track rabbit.
One night while Van Halen were opening for Black Sabbath in Alabama, the duel that David Lee Roth and Ozzy engaged in seemed to have the simple and utterly stupid premise of, ‘Let’s see who can snort the most coke without dying’. The quantity is said to have been enough to supply an entire month’s worth of parties with the greatest emoters in Hollywood. This was a period that Ozzy would later describe as the ‘snowblind’ years.
So, the story goes that the duel commences with a macho handshake and the snorting gets underway. Roth is declared the loser at 9 am the next morning when he passes out. The tour bus rolls on to Nashville, but when they arrive, they discover that Ozzy is missing. The police are called to look for him. At certain points during the unsuccessful search, Ozzy was simply presumed dead. Panic sets in among the band, but this is tempered by a certain sense of inevitability.
However, a few hours later a groggy figure staggered into the lobby of the hotel. Guests avoided this ghostly beast—stinking and covered in foulness. The hunh ed figure finally revealed his face and he was greeted with chants of “Ozzy’s alive.”
He would, however, soon find himself fired from Black Sabbath after the band could no longer bare his highwire acts. That’s saying something, when Black Sabbath are of the opinion that you’re pushing your luck then you’ve reached heights of degeneracy that even ancient kings of old would squirm at. Strangely, it was a very tricky decision though, because Ozzy happened to be one of the most profitable frontmen in music at the time. Such is the oddity of rock ‘n’ roll quite often the engines of income in a multi-million corporation are some of the least reliable people on the planet.
